What is SEO Worth?

Most website owners, choose to focus on SEO over paid advertising. This is due to the long-term benefits SEO offers to each of their sites.

According to one study, 81% of users find sites through search engines. If it hasn’t already, your business could benefit from having an online presence gained through SEO or paid advertising.

Now, what is SEO? It is the act of optimizing a website so that it can be found easily by search engines. It contains a wide variety of aspects that need to be considered such as link building and keyword optimization. Most if not all aspects of SEO take a considerable amount of time to implement successfully. Different search engines use complex algorithms to rank websites, so SEO guidelines change frequently. This also means that a website’s search ranking could vary depending on the latest update of the algorithm.

What about PPC? This is the process of buying sponsored links and advertisements that will be visible in SERPs or search engine result pages. PPC will also depend on where the ads were bought and they tend to have their variations as well. For example, on Google, you can bid on the keywords that appear on google search results and the higher the price you pay for the keyword, the more chances it gets to be seen on the very first page. This mode of advertising can be quite expensive in the long run, but it can also get businesses to get their message out to a large sector of the population in a brief period.

Unfortunately, neither PPC or SEO can guarantee you the top spot on search engines. When used properly, however, they both can help get you in front of your desired audience. The amount of effort they take to perform, how much money they cost, and how much time they take to see results will vary for both methods. Which is better for you will depend on your current circumstances, your budget, and the type of business that you own.

The Difference

One of the main benefits of PPC is the speed by which you advertise on the search engine under many keywords. When running a PPC campaign, the price often differs as well. You can appear on the first page of the SERPs for many relevant keywords. However, the costs of the keywords often vary in price. That is why you will notice that you will be paying a few cents for some while you pay for a few dollars to others. So in the long run, this can get quite expensive.

When it comes to SEO, there is a big difference. Although organic SEO will take longer when it comes to seeing results, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, SEMPO, estimates that 11% of advertising dollars are spent on organic search, versus 87% spent on PPC. That’s $1 billion spent on SEO as opposed to $10 billion spent on PPC. So the effectiveness of SEO along with the cheap availability of marketers who are capable of doing it, SEO is always better in the long run.

SEO is more Trusted

Research has shown that organic results are 8.5x more likely to be clicked on than PPC results. This is likely due to the advancement of users wherein they are starting to learn the difference between organic and paid advertising while also understanding that organic results are often more useful to them. PPC does perform better when it comes to conversions; this is usually due to the landing page that was heavily optimized by the advertiser.

SEO search results still account for a more significant percentage of clicks. So, if you were purely trying to decide between organic and PPC, the logical choice would be organic. But the best option for your business could be a mix of both.

Conclusion

Although SEO does take longer when it comes to seeing results, organic SEO is still worth it. It is a lot cheaper and will yield more clicks and is more trusted than PPC. Keep in mind that the key to successful online marketing is not in relying on SEO alone, but a good mixture of both to develop good results for your business and will help you enjoy a much larger web presence online.